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The Hmong and Yao mountain people of Sapa were strange and fascinating minorities that survive outside of the mainstream Vietnamese culture which is basically low land agricultural.
The Darling Cafe organised a trip to Halong Bay through the fertile Red River delta so I joined it. This farmer is ploughing a small patch to grow vegetables that look like cabbages alongside the endless expanse of rice fields covering the delta.
Harvesting rice is still done by hand.
The water buffalo is well adapted to working in the wet rice fields.
This is a village lime kiln where limestone is burnt with charcoal to make the lime the villagers need for the mortar they use to build their houses and to whitewash them after.
Here is the village sawmill, powered by an antique one cylinder gasoline engine.
Spread out to dry in the sun are the cylindrical briquettes moulded from powdered charcoal and clay that the villagers use in special stoves to cook meals.
Here is the Toyota minivan that brought our group of twelve to the Binh Minh hotel in the village of Bai Chay on Halong Bay 160 km from Hanoi.
The following day we took a three hour boat tour of the bay in the morning and drove back to Hanoi in the afternoon.
Here is the village of Hong Cai not far from Bai Chay where we stayed.
The motorised family houseboat of a prosperous bay fisherman.
The pictures speak for themselves.
There is nothing I could say to further enhance the beauty of these islands.
We hardly spoke for three hours, we just looked, spellbound by the ever-changing shapes and colours of nature.
This one had sails but it was proceeding under oars.
At every turn, a new vista.
The ideal place to dream and fantasize.
Still more fantastic views.
These two families were pulling up their nets, or perhaps crab pots.
What can I add?
Nothing...
